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I don't know what Atheists he's talking about but I've only read one post on A/N that bordered on an apology for Islam and it wasn't greeted with favor. Currently I place Islam at the top of my list of stupid ideas that threaten world peace. Islam is a carbuncle on the ass of humanity.

There are plenty of atheists who feel about like he does about Islam. But also a good portion of enablers. There was only one person who praised Islam so much I actually suspected him of being a Muslim "infiltrator" on AN although there have been plenty of people using the word "Islamophobia", equating dislike with racism, and especially saying "but Christians blah blah blah" (yeah, 'cause atheists really neglect to talk about Christianity).

I've never heard anyone accuse someone of racism when bashing Christianity--yet Christians are just as racially diverse as Muslims. I've rarely heard an atheist say that Christian fundamentalists are a tiny group of extremists or that religious right politics have nothing to do with Christianity. But in discussions of Islam, these things come up basically every time.

I can't stand the hypocrisy of militant atheists, or feminists, for that matter, doing a total turnaround when it comes to Islam.

I do. He's misfiring, but only slightly and forgivably. He is referring to secular humanists, or more specifically, new humanists. But from a distance, they are atheists as far as anybody is concerned because atheism as a whole refuses to take them to task for what is essentially, as Pat so eloquently states the case for, treason against freedom and free thought.

I sometimes feel like I'm pissing into a wind tunnel about folks that claim to be godless, yet entertain this fantasy of "moderate" islam coming to the rescue against islamist insanity if we only sit on our hands and hurl curse words like "islamophobe" or "racist" at those that disagree.

It has been pointed out explicitly by authors who are not pompous, middle class westerners that are fat on a diet comfort and a perverted abomination of liberalism (which betrays the word). Hirsi Ali is prolific in this regard, a woman to boot. And I have posted other articles by people that are native to, and thoroughly conversant with, the islamic world: Raymond Ibrahim and Kenan Malik -

Both state quite clearly that all this humanist accomodationism and tolerance has achieved is the legitimisation of islamist maniac voices as representative of muslims in general. That's right - OUR CURRENT PROBLEMS WITH ISLAM ARE SELF CREATED, and for that we have to thank those that have usurped center stage to claim to be the voices of contemporary humanism, and by extension, the voices atheism in general too.

Well, enough is enough. The humanism that is up on the public stage is a fraud and it has utterly betrayed all of it's enlightenment freethinker roots. Chomsky and his groupies are ever so fond of blaming US foreign policy for being the sole cause of all grief we currently have with the islamic world. I side with Pat 100% on this - "humanism" / "atheism" has to bear it's fair share of the responsibility too. It's their baby too.

I see your point. I wasn't considering the Secular Humanist - they are Atheist by default. I don't really consider them to be true Atheist because of the apologist position they take on all religions, not just Islam.
I gave up on them when they begin to demonise E.O. Wilson for his sociobiology theories and accusing him of being as bad as creationist - that put the lid on the jar for me.